Trace Adkins: Still rockin' country

Ten years into his career as a country chartbuster, with dozens of hit singles under his belt and nine top-selling albums, Trace Adkins is not taking anything for granted.

"We like to stay busy all the time -- I'm totally aware that a career in this business is a finite thing," Adkins said.

If you asked country music fans, they'd probably tell you Adkins can keep singing for decades to come.

If it seems like Adkins burst onto the charts with his 1996 debut and its smash hit, "(This Ain't) No Thinkin' Thing," that's just another show business myth -- Adkins had been playing music for 10 years at that point. Just another overnight success story after a decade on the honky tonk circuit.

"I played bass in a gospel quartet originally, worked a lot of Jamborees and such as a young man," said Adkins, a Springhill, La., native. "I started playing in clubs around 1986, around Texas and Louisiana -- I've been doing this a long time."

Adkins grew up in a musical family but didn't immediately think he'd become a full-time musician. He studied petroleum technology at Louisiana Tech University and worked several years after graduation as a pipefitter on offshore oil drilling platforms. By 1992, Adkins was sufficiently bitten by the music bug to move to Nashville, but he still had to work construction during the day to pay his rent.

His big break came in 1995, when then-Capitol Records president Scott Hendricks heard Adkins playing in a juke joint near Nashville and was taken with his booming voice and working man's sensibility. Within a year, his debut album, "Dreamin' Out Loud," was climbing the charts. Adkins' debut album ended up placing four singles in the top 20 of the country charts.

Adkins, 45, is a prime example of the way rock 'n' roll has transformed country, as many of his biggest hits would've been considered country-rock 30 years ago.

"I think that's just because a lot of people that grew up in the 1970s and '80s, listening to a lot of good rock 'n' roll, have all ended up in country music now," Adkins said. "I agree completely that many of us would've been called rock bands years ago. Rascal Flatts would've been considered a rock band 30 years ago. I think the main reason is because of the producers we have in Nashville right now -- who are at the top of their game -- and they are all from that same generation that grew up listening to that music. They've all been influenced by that classic rock sound of the '70s, '80s and they've really honed their craft, so that is the sound that's coming through their work."

And if the music business in general is enduring hard times and record companies are seeing revenue drop as other methods of receiving music cause CD sales to drop, Adkins said country music is thriving.

"I don't honestly think country music has ever been any healthier than it is right now," he said.

"It's America's music, and if you check Pollstar, you'd see that the biggest tours (for attendance) are country-western. I think that's because country music touches a broader audience than any of the other styles do. Other genres are more specialized, with specialized appeal, but country is so inclusive right now that there's room in it for a lot of different styles. All kinds of different styles are in country music."

One new aspect to Adkins' success is the advent of ringtones as a subsidiary to hit singles. Just six weeks after its release, "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" was downloaded by more than 75,000 people as a ringtone. The song hit No. 15 on the national ringtone charts, which are usually dominated by pop and hip-hop. That appeal helped generate continued sales for his latest CD, last year's "Dangerous Man," which has so far yielded three hit singles.

"There's no way I could have ever seen that ringtone thing coming," Adkins said. "That's a whole new wrinkle that's been extended into the game."

Adkins is one of those Nashville stars who depends on a regular stable of songwriters to provide him with new material. Over the years he's done some intriguing songs, like "Arlington," a 2005 tune that is sung from the viewpoint of a solider about to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The first single off his latest album was "Swing," a song that compares romantic ventures to baseball. His current single, "I Wanna Feel Something," expresses a desire for authentic emotion in our hectic, prefab modern world.

"We've found a few writers in town that really write in that vein, that can produce songs that are right in my wheelhouse as a singer," said Adkins.

Adkins said he's already about halfway through recording his next album, and he has studio time booked for this summer to finish it off.

"I think we've recorded a couple of future hits already," Adkins said, adding he'd like to some day record a Christmas gospel album.

But more than 10 years into his music career, Trace Adkins is still enjoying the ride, and he's enjoying being a voice for the common man.

"I'm pretty proud that I fulfilled my original, 1996 seven-album deal," he said. "Not many people get to do that, so it is a real accomplishment in this business. I re-upped for another five-album deal right away, so I realize how lucky I am to be doing this for a living. And I absolutely see myself as a blue-collar guy singing about things other blue-collar people can understand."

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